Stealing Silver Oak

I used to work at a restaurant. All restaurants have an expensive wine on the menu that they nudge you towards. At my restaurant it was the Silver Oak cabernet. Our 100 dollar bottle. As an empty pocketed bus-boy I marveled at how many customers ordered this thing just to leave half a glass on the table. I took full advantage. This was how I drank this wine: secreted in a walk-in, shivering with cold, with fear that I would be caught.

So let me tell you this: Silver Oak Cabernet is satiny; it crushes with heavy fruit; there is plummy tartness and dark fruit bite. So very good. This is how good: I would never mix it with the other leftover wine I stole. Yes, that good.

Or maybe not. I have spent the money and rebought a few bottles of Silver Oak recently. I like it, a lot. But none of the burst. What did I like so much? Is the vintage so different? Am I? I would like to tell you that I was not addicted to the flavor of the wine, but to the taste of thievery, of bitter fear. But I don't think so. I have heard wine people call this bottle ”Silver Joke” because of its cost. I was not tasting fruit or barrel; I was tasting that Benjamin.

Is that okay? To mostly enjoy a thing's perceived value? I doubt it, but I don't remember any of the $10 wine I stole.